Ana Ivanovic: Confidence the key to success

When she lifted the French Open trophy in June 2008, Ana Ivanovic was billed as women’s tennis’ new sweetheart.

Since then however, injury troubles and a drop in form have seen the 22-year-old Serbian slip down the rankings, and off the radar.

Ivanovic herself admits she is in need of a rest and has put her drop in form partly down to “thinking about everything too much”.

“At the moment I feel like I have a plan in place and I know what I have to do in each area of my game,” she told ACE Tennis magazine.

“I think I’ve been thinking about everything too much and trying to address lots of issues with my game, but just at the moment I think it’s a little unbalanced.”

“My fitness is at one level, my mind at another and my game is at yet another. I think that all of these things have to fit together so that you can go in the right direction,” she added.

Since picking up a thumb injury that ruled her out of the Beijing Olympics last year, the failure to replicate the success found on the clay courts of Paris is one she puts down to confidence Ã¢â‚¬â€ or rather a lack of it.

“Confidence is a strange thing. Once you have it, you think you can never lose it, but once you lose it, you think you’ll never get it back.”

“I feel very confident when I’m practising, but then when I start playing competitively it’s a little bit different. Many times when I’m in a good position, I just don’t trust myself like I did before.”

Ranked at No.22 in the world and with the first Grand Slam of 2010 a little over a month away, Ivanovic is currently enjoying a break before attempting to climb back up the rankings next year.

“I feel happy that we have a good off-season this year, so I have more time to completely switch off. I haven’t had a proper holiday in years.”